News & Blog

Welcome, Revival League, to the new MST3K.com!

A Message From Joel

Hello, Revival League, it's Joel again, bidding you welcome to the new MST3K.com!

This will be your new space for “insider updates” from the creative team behind MST3K — as well as some other cool stuff we’re still developing as we get closer to the new season.

Right now things around here are in the early stages, but we have big plans for the future and wanted to get you, the backers who made all this possible, in on the ground floor. In the meantime, you can expect much more frequent updates from me leading up to the Netflix premiere on April 14. Plus, we’ll be having some fun events, and we’ll try to give you some new insights from the new cast and crew

Are you excited? I know I am. But first, let me introduce you to someone you’ll be getting to know well:

Introducing Lesley Kinzel!

Lesley came to my attention when I was able to read an essay she wrote while she was an editor of xoJane.com, and I was so moved and amazed by some of her observations, I simply had to meet her.

I’d like you to check it out, it’s really good, and it tells you more about her than I ever could:

Then, after corresponding over the phone and in e-mails and finally meeting in person, I knew I wanted to find a way to work with her.

So yeah, I was able to enlist her to come to work on the Kickstarter campaign and Lesley helped me, along with Ivan, to edit some of the updates I’ve sent out over the last year. And, well, then I recruited her to be a writer and associate producer on the next MST3K. We worked together almost daily, generating ideas for riffs as well as doing “riff producing” where we “seamed” the riffs together (she’ll tell you more about this process later).

As we start to get near the end of the Kickstarter, I think it's really important to start thinking about what comes next, and how we can all keep going together as a community. And, you know, our own website is going to be a really important part of that. So, as we started to think about how to make sure we have a great online experience, I realized that Lesley would be really incredibly valuable here, too.

You should also know that Lesley has been involved with various MST3K-related forums, message boards and newsgroups since she was a teenager. She believes in our community and I feel she has the right amount of respect for it to help us care for it as we grow. So, who better to represent MST3K online than someone with decades of experience in newsgroups and working in-house on the creative end of the show, as well as working on our successful Kickstarter campaign?

Without further ado, meet my friend, Lesley Kinzel.

A Message From Lesley

HELLOOOOOO REVIVAL LEAGUE.

GUYS. Isn’t this nuts? We’re so close to new episodes of MST3K. You can feel it. The energy in the air. The heady scent of adrenaline, snack cakes and botsweat. It’s intoxicating.

This is me being very chill and cool at the afterparty following the Los Angeles Kickstarter Screening. Also that's executive producer Harold Buchholz in the background there. He's awesome. Hi Harold!

As Joel noted, I’m an old fan from way back — my first full episode was “Rocketship X-M” and I remember watching it from my mom’s couch with an explosive sense that this was going to be very important to me. Little did I know. For a couple years I suffered my fandom in solitude, showing episodes to friends who failed to appreciate them, until eventually I discovered the MST3K BBs on the late lamented Prodigy online service (this is what we had before we had the graphical web, kids) and the rest, as they say, is really subjective and not that interesting history. (Big ups to my fellow Prodigy nerds, though — say hi if you’re out there! I was the furtive creature known as Eskimo Spy.)

ANYWAY, I digress. The point is: we’ve got a new website! Yay for us! Besides my own responsibilities here, I have great support and collaboration from the folks at Shout! Factory, who developed and designed this site, plus you’ll also be hearing from “Weird Evan” Brown, the dynamic and multi-talented voice behind MST3K’s Twitter and Facebook accounts for years now — we call him Weird Evan for a reason but that’s still under NDA until April 14. Think of it as your first Easter egg.

We’re still in the early stages here at MST3K.com; much like the show itself, this is a humble operation, but we have some truly fantastic things planned for the next few weeks — and months! As the Kickstarter winds down, this will be your new best resource to get information direct from Joel and the creative team behind MST3K. And once the new episodes are out, there’s going to be a LOT of supercool stuff we can share.

You’ll also have special access to six featured episodes every month. This month, in honor of our BIG launch, we’ve chosen six episodes starring oversized monsters. As a bonus, you can look forward to new insights on these selections, both from Joel as well as the new cast. We’ll also be hosting livetweet groupwatching events on Friday evenings, so clear your calendar basically forever.

AND THERE’S SO MUCH MORE! But we’ll stop here for now. In the coming days you’ll get to read the first of a new series of “Chats With Joel,” about the new season but also all kinds of random stuff I’m sure I’ll think of later. No, seriously, that’s a joke, I’ve got it all planned out. What I really want to do is plan.

And of course — if you’ve got questions, or thoughts, or ideas, or recipes for Gold Roasted Mutant Hellbeast, please comment (or email me!) and share them. We’re all friends here. Let’s make it amazing.

Hello Lesley, hi everyone!
I have to say, being an MST3K fan in europe and the only person in ones family (city? country?) who knows, let alone considers oneself a fan of this great show, it’s always very exciting to see how many likeminded people actually exist out there.
I usually stay as far away from every form of “organized fandom” as possible because sooner or later there seems to be some sense of excluding people. (You know WHO you are ^^) but following most of the Kickstarter campaign, everybody here just seemed extremely happy and positive. So, here’s to a great season, hopefully more than that! :)

PS: How can you force members to limit themselves to just 3 favourite quotes in their profile? That’s almost impossible! xD

i actually dug out my mst3k convention shirt from 1994 to wear in full nostalgic glory while i set up my account. and i realize that no one here is going to think that’s odd. i feel almost embarrassed how excited i am about the new episodes.

The revival of MST3K and Lesley’s letters are two of the best things to happen in 2017, so far. Please note, you only had to beat out the Moonlight/La La Land screw up at the Oscars. Keep on Pumamanning your lives away. I know I am.

This is all so surreal. I remember the letter-writing campaigns back in the days between Comedy Central and Sci-Fi. The SOS (Save Our Satellite) campaigns near the end of the Sci-Fi run, but here we are again with our satellite back up where it belongs and Movie Sign nearly upon us.

Hi Lesley! When I was lucky enough to meet Joel last year and express what bringing back MST3K meant to me, he was kind enough to refer me to you and your article. You get it. You’ve got a real good thing going here, and I’m so looking forward to sharing it with my big extended adopted MSTie family!

Can I admit something to you all? I know this is a safe space…..I put episodes of MST3k on every night as my eye lash mites close my eyes. Every night. I’m a Kickstarter supporter and I am beyond excited.

I have actually been reading you since the xojane days, and I actually died a little from exploded heart in seeing that article you wrote about mst. MST3K has been with me since age 6, got me through the death of my father’s side of the family and a huge breakup as well as introducing me to my now husband. Needless to say, it’s important, and the other big side of my life, size acceptance, was spurred on by your essays (and by your book, two whole cakes, which every single person should go buy now).